My View: Winnebago County must continue the push for a diverse workforce

Saturday

Nov 25, 2017 at 11:00 AM

By L.C. Wilson

After months of me challenging our community about employment. I want to report that River Bluff Nursing Home is doing good things as it relates to diversity. There are 215 employees employed there and 63 percent are white, 22 percent are African American, 11 percent are Hispanic, and 4 percent are other races.

The breakdown for management staff (including nurses): 79 percent are white, 11 percent are African American, and 10 percent are Hispanic. I give Dave Peterson, and Pamela Gentner credit for making this happen.

Thank you to River Bluff for demonstrating that diversity can be accomplished in Winnebago County.

Right now I am challenging businesses to make similar efforts as job openings become available. If you do have job openings in a professional employment area, I would ask that among the applications and resumes that you receive with degreed applicants that you please be consider seeking out and interviewing minorities, especially if you feel they have transferrable skills.

There have been newspaper articles written that indicate in the Rockford region that we don’t have enough persons with a bachelor’s degree. Yet industry still hire persons with the skill set verses a degreed person.

I get mixed feelings when I hear this. I have a little over a year remaining to serve on the Winnebago County Board. My intentions are to be relentless in helping to make positive change in the gross disparity in income and job opportunities between minorities and non-minorities.

There has been so little progress by businesses to rectify this. It is being said by experts that 100 percent of American industry is demanding a better educated workforce, 50 percent of the American workforce will be minorities by 2020, and two-thirds of all jobs will require post-secondary training or education.

To our local businesses: what are you doing to match these projections made by experts? To make a significant difference in our community we need to focus on crime reduction through job training and livable wage jobs. We also need to keep the focus on background convictions. Some in the minority community feel hopeless. This is where we have an opportunity.